Looking for more apps for your new iPad? Ars readers are pointing the way.

We recently recommended a handful of apps to get new iPad or iPad mini owners up to speed on some common usage patterns. But the buck didn't stop there: Ars readers also chimed in with several recommendations we thought were worth sharing. We've arranged the recommendations loosely into categories, such as games, productivity, and music.

Here at Ars, we use many of these are apps ourselves or know colleagues who use them. Either way, they are apps that Ars readers feel passionate about—a ringing endorsement, I'm sure you'll agree.

News

We recommended Flipboard for a curated selection of top news articles in your favorite categories and Reeder for sifting through mountains of articles via RSS. One Ars reader recommended Newsify RSS Reader ($0.99) as an alternative to Reeder. It also uses Google Reader to subscribe to and sync RSS feeds, it looks nice, and it will only cost you a buck.

Instapaper.

Other readers mentioned apps like Instapaper ($3.99) and Pocket (free), which let you read articles that you have cached for offline reading. Such apps also re-format long-form articles using layouts and fonts more conducive to reading for long stretches.

Learning

The iPad is a great device for learning, and readers pointed to a couple apps for knowledge enhancement. An obvious choice is iTunes U (free), Apple's gateway to largely free content available from colleges and universities. You can access video lectures, handouts, notes, and more, from courses like Stanford's iOS development class or Oxford's lecture series on JRR Tolkien.

iTunes U.

If you love space (and what self-respecting Ars reader doesn't, I ask), Solar Walk ($2.99) lets you navigate a virtual 3D version of the solar system from the comfort of your own couch—zero-G training not required.

Interactive textbooks are considered one of the latest advancements in learning, and the iPad has them in spades. In addition to interactive texts available through the iBookstore, Touch Press has a series of "books" designed as standalone apps. The Elements ($13.99) was the company's first foray into the field of apps as interactive texts, and can certainly entertain and wow with its interactive presentation of the periodic table.

The Elements.

Reader eas wasn't as impressed as others, though. "I found The Elements to be long on style and short on substance or enduring value. I say this not to spoil your enjoyment, but to let other people who come here looking for recommendations know that there are differences of opinion on this one."

Touch Press has several other interactive book apps available, covering gems, dinosaurs, orchestral music, and even T.S. Eliot.

Games

Unsurprisingly, readers had a lot of opinions to offer on games. Kingdom Rush HD ($2.99) was mentioned several times as a good tower defense style game, for instance.

Kingdom Rush HD.

Reader r3tina disagreed with our choice of Ticket to Ride as a top board game adaptation. "While I enjoy Ticket to Ride, most of my multiplayer board game time is spend with Carcassonne ($9.99). In my opinion it has set the bar for board game-to-tablet adaptations."

reverend atman felt casual gamers would really like Jetpack Joyride (free), one of our recommendations for new Android tablet users. "I don't think it's possible to overstate how cool that game is for casual gamers. One control. Your finger or thumb. That's it." Also, you can fly by shooting bullets at the ground. 'Nuff said.

Jetpack Joyride.

MacdonaldTriad was upset we didn't mention one of the most popular sandbox games around. "How is Minecraft ($6.99) not listed under games? It's not the same experience as on a PC or Mac, but it's still fun."

Music

When it comes to listening to music, not everyone is a fan of our recommendation, Spotify. Reader jamieskella wondered, "How and why is Spotify still being recommended when Rdio (free) boasts 18 million songs and is available in so many regions globally? The supremely intuitive app experience leaves Spotify in the dust, the social features add to the already first-rate discovery options, while the method of cataloguing your favourite music is far superior."

A few other readers also recommended TuneIn Radio Pro ($0.99), which connects to freely available streaming Internet radio stations like Indie Pop Rocks from Soma.FM or Metal Invasion Radio.

TuneIn Radio Pro.

For making music, readers also recommended some more serious tools over the easy-to-recommend GarageBand, especially if you like electronic music.

EmeraldArcana said that "for on-the-fly music making I prefer Figure ($0.99) by Propellerheads. It's cheap, has great use of the touchscreen, super easy to use, sounds great, and you can actually put out some great songs."

Propellerheads' ReBirth for iPad ($14.99) also got some mentions. It combines a virtual Roland T-303 bass synth with virtual T-808 and T-909 drum machines to make the perfect techno beat machine. Relive 1994 all over again, and rave 'til dawn to your own club hits!

If that isn't enough virtual synth for you, readers also raved about Korg's iMS-20 ($29.99) and Moog's Animoog ($29.99) simulators.

Animoog.

Chat

Connecting and communicating with others is always important. If our recommendation of Verbs IM doesn't suit your needs, readers also recommend Trillian (free), which can sync with the desktop version; imo messenger for iPad (free), which includes its own protocol in addition to several others, and BeeJiveIM for iPad ($4.99), a popular favorite.

imo messenger for iPad.

Art

We pointed out a few image editors, including Google's free Snapseed. However, PhotoForge2 ($3.99) was posited as a great image editing alternative. (We have mentioned others for iPhone users in the past, and many have iPad versions as well).

But tablets can be used for more than just photo editing. Paper (free) was chosen by Apple as "App of the Year" for 2012. The natural media panting and drawing app includes tools like pencils, pens, brushes, and more, and the "ink engine" reacts the way you would expect on real paper.

Paper.

For more technical drawing and illustration, users might prefer a vector tool like iDraw ($8.99), or Autodesk's Sketchbook Pro ($4.99), which uses the same paint engine as the desktop version of Sketchbook.

Video

Reader alagemo complained that our app roundup had "no mention of anything to do with video...Netflix, YouTube, or Hulu should be on most people's shopping lists."

Netflix.

We agree—lots of users like watching video on an iPad when watching the 55-inch flatscreen in the living room isn't convenient. Here are several apps to consider:

Several broadcast and cable channels also have their own apps for streaming video content as well. Some services, like Netflix and Hulu Plus, may also require additional subscription fees to actually stream content.

Productivity

Despite many claims to the contrary, the iPad can be used by some to get work done. We mentioned some good text editors in our previous roundup, but reader invalidname pointed out that developers would probably be better served by a purpose-built code editor.

"For developers, Textastic Code Editor ($8.99) is an even better text editor than the options [mentioned previously]. It syntax-highlights dozens of different kinds of files, including the hip programming languages like Groovy and Scala, and old necessities like Makefiles and Apache config files."

"To top it off, Textastic has a clever scheme for getting to non-alphanumerics on the screen keyboard: an extra row of keys with five characters per key arranged like the 5 on a die. Tap for the center character, swipe diagonally for any of the corners. It's a clever solution to the problem of forgetting your Bluetooth keyboard, and it's mighty fast in practice. To wit, I wrote significant parts of my last two iOS programming books in Textastic, including some C examples."

Textastic.

Though we noted that iBooks can be used to read PDF files, some readers mentioned iAnnotate PDF ($9.99) and GoodReader for iPad ($4.99) as alternatives, particularly for their built-in tools for making detailed annotations.

For keeping track of notes, images, websites, to-dos, and other assorted bits of information, lots of readers like Evernote (free). The mobile app syncs with the Evernote service via the cloud, so you can access your virtual "notebooks" from your Mac, PC, iPhone, or Android device as well. An optional premium subscription allows you to cache data offline, share notebooks with others, and add a password lock to sensitive information.

Evernote.

Finally, many readers agree that 1Password ($7.99) is an indispensable tool for any iPad user. It can generate strong passwords for you and store them in a secure place unlocked by a master password. Think of it like OS X's Keychain, only you can sync passwords among desktop and mobile devices.

Promoted Comments

While Paper is great for casual use and it's a beautiful app, i really cannot for the life of me recommend it when others exist. The only thing about paper is that it starts free, but in-app purchases pile up and it becomes actually the same price or more expensive than better apps.

If you want casual to semi great use, go Sketch Club (2.99 - Universal). More resolution, saves video, uploads to a great community and has TONS of features.

If you want actual natural media go for ArtRage (4.99). That one has some really incredible natural media brushes and effects. Ars has done a review of the PC counterpart, this one is obviously less comprehensive but it's indeed great. Exports to Photoshop files, etc.

Sketchbook pro (4.99) is incredible and it can do 6MP illustrations with 24 layers in iPad 3-4.

Sketchbook Ink (4.99) is super easy to use, has layers, and exports to 30 MP images.

Procreate (4.99) has the best brushes and it's incredibly easy and customizeable.

Brushes 3 (Free + IAP for pro features - Universal) is super easy and it's great to try for a few really breat brushes.

Adobe Ideas (9.99 - Universal) for super easy sketching that is vector based, has layers, incredibly large canvas area, and can export to vector based PDF.

For casual animation look for Animation Desk (4.99), as it has 2 layers, plus backgraunds, natural media brushes, exports to youtube, can have voices, is compatible with presure-sensitive stili, and has a beautiful interface. The real limitation for this app is that there are not really options for FPS... other apps are better than this one at that, but this one wins on style and brushes hands down.

43 Reader Comments

Yes! Kingdom Rush is my favorite iPhone app, although I haven't tried it on the iPad. It is very difficult but not too difficult, although I still haven't beaten the last few bonus levels. Also they don't depend too much on in-app purchases. I can't wait until they release a sequel.

Another really good strategy game I found is Autumn Dynasty. You control units by circling them with your fingers and dragging them where you want. It looks amazing too and has a decent medieval Asia storyline. I highly recommend it.

- "The Room" : One of the most fun games I've played all year (on any platform). Unfortunately it's short (I think 10 hours), but it's a puzzle game that isn't too easy or too hard, and provides a nice sense of accomplishment and thinking

- "Bastion" : I hadn't heard about it until it came to the iPad. Quite enjoyable action-RPG. I don't know how long it is, but I'm about 3 hours in so far, and am enjoying it very much.

- "Lost Winds 2" - I played the first when I had a Wii way back when, and fell in love with the simplicity. While I'm not thrilled about the sequel's control scheme on the iPad, it's undoubtedly one of the most aesthetically pleasing games I've ever played. Beautifully made.

Music:

- "Songza" : Changed my life. Didn't hear about it until the app, but there's an associated website that provides the same idea / service. http://www.songza.com

Slingbox didn't make the list? Not only can you airplay slingbox to your apple tv connected tv, but you can also use the ipad as a dedicated channel browser. and you don't even have to be in the same country as your actual slingbox.

Also, Evernote food is a really slick app for tracking meals, restaurants, (I hesitate to say recipes because right now it does not support pdf recipes for some reason) Evernote food will use the GPS data and time-stamp of your food photos to help name the meal (breakfast, lunch, dinner) and help you locate the restaurant using foursquare data. it'll also tag the cuisine type based on the restaurant. Really slick.

- "The Room" : One of the most fun games I've played all year (on any platform). Unfortunately it's short (I think 10 hours), but it's a puzzle game that isn't too easy or too hard, and provides a nice sense of accomplishment and thinking

I'll second that – it's even more fun if you have a friend or two sitting with you helping out, bouncing ideas off each other.

Yes! Kingdom Rush is my favorite iPhone app, although I haven't tried it on the iPad. It is very difficult but not too difficult, although I still haven't beaten the last few bonus levels. Also they don't depend too much on in-app purchases. I can't wait until they release a sequel.

Unsurprisingly it plays better and is more fun on the iPad.

For someone who asked about kids apps, my kids love anything by Toca Boca. Looks like they've released several new apps since I last looked too, I'll have to check them out.

Yes! Kingdom Rush is my favorite iPhone app, although I haven't tried it on the iPad. It is very difficult but not too difficult, although I still haven't beaten the last few bonus levels. Also they don't depend too much on in-app purchases. I can't wait until they release a sequel.

Unsurprisingly it plays better and is more fun on the iPad.

Kingdom Rush is definitely more interesting on the iPad, though the recent update made it a little to easy to complete all levels.

It's worth it to educate yourself on the security level of apps like 1Password, how to protect your iOS device, and an analysis of inherent vulnerabilities (like the one by Elcomsoft). Check out this 1Password blog as a good starting point.

Keep in mind, neither the original article nor this followup are meant to be exhaustive; they are meant to give new users some really good recommendations to get started. Every user is going to have her own favorite apps/utilities/games/etc, and we mean no disrespect to an app's users or developers if they are not mentioned here.

But definitely keep those comments sharing your favorites coming, because I have no doubt that some people will read through them and find a gem or two they didn't know about before.

I love 1password when I have it working, but God help you if you change your master password while syncing to dropbox. I had to jump through so many hoops of device-specific passwords, syncing/deleting databases, and unexplained "null errors" I was about to tear my hair out! It seems like 1password doesn't play well with dropbox's 2-level authentication, as everything was peachy-keen once I reverted to 1-level authentication. there might have been a random outage right as I was trying to change settings, but I'm too afraid to try again and find out.

The new version of the app may be better on this front, but I just bought the old one a few months ago and hell if I'm gonna pony up again so soon.

(The situation wasn't improved on my nexus 7, for anyone who's wondering. the android version of the app is heaps uglier, to boot.)

[edit]I can't remember if some of these were covered in the previous article, but here are my suggestions:

music - iHeartRadio is actually pretty good, I use it to listen to 24/7 comedy (102.7 in the Austin,TX area)

games - Rebuild is basically the flash game plus upgrades to the hero characters, but I found it worth the money. Hard to see everything on my iphone, but I imagine it's easier to play on the iPad.

utility - xbox smartglass and apple's remote app are surprisingly reliable, if you have a corresponding xbox 360 and/or apple TV. being able to use the iphone's keyboard makes the 360's web browser actually useful if you don't have the messenger kit.

info/trivia - shazam, flixter, imdb, espn scorecenter, and gasbuddy are my go-tos when I'm out and about. I don't know how many people tote their 3G/4G iPads around, but these apps serve most of my day-to-day questions ("What's this junk on the radio?" "What's that new movie with what's-his-face and when's the next showing?" "How badly did the cowboys botch the game?" "how far should I drive to save 3 cents per gallon?")

While Paper is great for casual use and it's a beautiful app, i really cannot for the life of me recommend it when others exist. The only thing about paper is that it starts free, but in-app purchases pile up and it becomes actually the same price or more expensive than better apps.

If you want casual to semi great use, go Sketch Club (2.99 - Universal). More resolution, saves video, uploads to a great community and has TONS of features.

If you want actual natural media go for ArtRage (4.99). That one has some really incredible natural media brushes and effects. Ars has done a review of the PC counterpart, this one is obviously less comprehensive but it's indeed great. Exports to Photoshop files, etc.

Sketchbook pro (4.99) is incredible and it can do 6MP illustrations with 24 layers in iPad 3-4.

Sketchbook Ink (4.99) is super easy to use, has layers, and exports to 30 MP images.

Procreate (4.99) has the best brushes and it's incredibly easy and customizeable.

Brushes 3 (Free + IAP for pro features - Universal) is super easy and it's great to try for a few really breat brushes.

Adobe Ideas (9.99 - Universal) for super easy sketching that is vector based, has layers, incredibly large canvas area, and can export to vector based PDF.

For casual animation look for Animation Desk (4.99), as it has 2 layers, plus backgraunds, natural media brushes, exports to youtube, can have voices, is compatible with presure-sensitive stili, and has a beautiful interface. The real limitation for this app is that there are not really options for FPS... other apps are better than this one at that, but this one wins on style and brushes hands down.

Haven't had a chance to check out AppleU but I will definitely be investigating tonight. Wasn't aware it integrated the major universities' free courses. Awesome.

Evernote is a definite download for this evening, as well.

I have to personally HIGHLY recommend Flipboard. This app is the perfect consolidation of RSS and perfect implementation of aggregate news. The news sources are vast and plenty and easily customized to your taste. They even have "Reddit for Flipboard".

I'd like to make a prediction that Flipboard will quickly become the FB equivalent of aggregate news and eliminate the need for RSS readers altogether.

For adults only, The Walking Dead Game is an excellent, if somewhat pricey game. GTA Vice City is an excellent port of the original. Also CSR Racing provides hours of fun and don't forget the stalwart Marvel Comics app, the comics look great and they offer quite a few of 'em for free..

Yes, the Walking Dead is awesome. I'm about to finish it on PS3 and I cannot believe how good of a story it is. To the point where my father was around and stayed glued to his sit watching me play until I was done with the chapter.

Play it while not in a terrible mood though, because it is depressing as hell.

Edit - point being: if you are able to deal with some wonky controls, buy it for your ipad if you want that experience on the go.

Prefer Lastpass over 1Password, especially since the app is free (though it requires Lastpass Premium), but to each their own. Still cheaper than buying a desktop and tablet/smartphone app with 1Password (which is the most beneficial setup) and more flexible with the passwords and even more convenience with credit cards and address form filling. But some people aren't comfortable with storing their digital lives on the cloud, even if it is encrypted very well.

Prefer Lastpass over 1Password, especially since the app is free (though it requires Lastpass Premium), but to each their own. Still cheaper than buying a desktop and tablet/smartphone app with 1Password (which is the most beneficial setup) and more flexible with the passwords and even more convenience with credit cards and address form filling. But some people aren't comfortable with storing their digital lives on the cloud, even if it is encrypted very well.

Flipboard over Zite??? Somebody needs another cup of Starbucks! Flipboard is good...and I used it for along time, but Zite blows it away in presentation, ease of configurability, and the way it "learns" (very well, I might add) what you want to read about.